“Speak to your dead. Write for your dead. Tell them a story. What are you doing with this life? Let them hold you accountable. Let them make you bolder or more modest or louder or more loving, whatever it is, but ask them in, listen, and then write. And when war comes - and make no mistake, it is already here - be sure you write for the living too. The ones you love, and the ones who are coming for your life. What will you give them when they get there?” - Alexander Chee
Latest Publications
House of Mirrors
How Mis- and Disinformation Amplify Imperialist Histories to Shape Asian American Political Participation in California’s 45th Congressional District
I completed this project in 2024 as the activist-in-residence hosted by the Asian American Studies Center at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
My research questions began with the desire to more deeply understand the role of mis- and disinformation and their impacts on Asian America. In many Asian American activist and movement spaces, we are seeing tensions, conflicts, and fractures partly caused by the spread of mis- and disinformation. We are witnessing narrative trends that contribute to tensions within, across, and about Asian American communities. I was interested in deepening our understanding of how these fractures have been formed and what is the role of healing justice in mending these fractures.
In particular, I focused on California’s 45th Congressional District (CA-45) as a case study to shed light on these broader questions. CA-45 was most recently redistricted in 2020 and contains over 756,000 people with a significant Asian American population. CA-45 contains Little Saigon, located in Garden Grove and Westminster in Orange County, which is home to the largest ethnic Vietnamese population outside of Vietnam.
CA-45’s House race is a story about a Korean American politician spreading mis- and disinformation to her Vietnamese American constituents in order to run against a Taiwanese American and later, a Vietnamese American candidate. It is a story about the weaponization of trauma for one’s personal and political gain, and in the process, fracturing Asian American communities. It is a story set in a house of mirrors: mirrors that refract narratives, showing clarity while also creating distortion. This house of mirrors is set against the backdrop of imperialism, war, trauma, displacement, grief, healing, identity-building, identity politics, electoral power, and most of all, our shared desire to be seen as who we are.
-
How the Anti-Affirmative Action Movement Exploited Asian Americans
The “American Dream” is built on a myth of meritocracy
-
The Tragedy in Uvalde Should Make Us All Abolitionists
If the police kept us safe, we would be safe by now. But we are not. The fear with which we live is fundamental to the American experience.
-
Injustice by Design, Solidarity by Choice
The 1992 Los Angeles Uprisings, or saigu, traumatized many in the Black, Korean, and other communities. 30 years later, what have we learned?
-
Honoring Shaoxiong “Dennis” Zheng’s Life Means Centering Healing and Transformative Justice
Safety is actively cultivating the kinds of relationships that center healing, accountability, and community.
-
Why Ethnic Studies is Vital for Our Children
The majority of curricula taught in U.S. history classes is based on a white-centered narrative. [this article was selected for inclusion in Asian American Advancing Justice’s Wholestory Education campaign]
-
For Asian Americans, Claiming American Identity Means Rejecting the Model Minority Myth
Reflections on Asian American racialization and what are the things we need to hold to claim an American identity.